I have a 460m in my alienware right now, and it's not getting the job done. What all do I need in order to upgrade it to a 7970m? Do I need a new power supply? (Not a/c adapter). How would I go about getting something like that? I just need help overall...

Well we know some places don't allow this kind of discussion but this is Tech|Inferno, not only do we allow it, we encourage it! So I'll start first: M17x-R2 Pros: Dual 5870M is still FASTER than a single 6970M in most cases M17x-R2 RGB LED can't be matched The 920/940xm + TS combo beats a 2820qm and there is no 2920xm for R3 currently. Construction: Aluminum vs Trojan Rubber. 'Nuff said. Unlocked bios by TheWiz and possible GPU upgrades coming ala Crossfire 6970M. Has been around longer and is now a very stable system. You can grab it cheap on the Dell outlet. Better touch panel. IMO looks better than R3. M17x-R2 Cons: Older chipset + CPU architecture No official 6970M love from Dell Slightly heavier M17x-R3 Pros Sandy Bridge + Cougar Point (once it's revised haha) Newer design that may appeal to some. Lighter than R2 and thinner. Soft Touch Rubber 120 Hz 3D display technology Extended battery life thanks to graphics switching tech (optimius + amd manual switching) Low starting price M17x-R3 Cons: Soft touch rubber flakes off - rut roh! It has been reported that the CPU throttles (DaneGRClose can confirm this) No RGB LED No dual card support So there you have it, that's my list and my overall preference goes to the R2. R3 would have been in my sig if it had dual card support despite it's inferior build quality and lack of RGB LED. Don't like my reasons? Well bring it!

Ok I have mentioned that I ran into issues after I uninstalled the Dell AMD 6970M driver and replaced it with the Catalyst 11.4. Specifically, the FN+F7 functionality was lost and I had to resort to manual switching (via control panel) to the IGP. However, even when doing so, I noticed the battery life would not register higher than 2 hours. I brought this up over at NBR and Inap mentioned he got FN+F7 working fine with the 11.4 Catalyst. Batboy then made a post specifying the following: I tried the above except I did not do a reformat but rather uninstalled the Dell AMD driver and went straight to the 11.4 Catalysts. So this brings me to the point of this thread: Please share any tips/tricks you have for successfully reformatting the R3.